Displaying items by tag: Design

Wow! Ok this is a new one for me. Apparently it is simply too difficult to draw and code for the female form in games. At least that is what Ubisoft’s Creative Director, Alex Amancio said recently in a video interview posted on the site Polygon. Because of this difficulty there will be no women in Ubisoft’s next installment of Assassin’s Creed, at least the Co-Op part. Now, either this is one of the dumbest things ever said by a gaming executive, or it is a bad attempt to draw attention to a game that does not need any help.

As most of you are already aware Apple has built a very interesting corporate mythology that has allowed them to have a massive impact on the consumer electronics market. While we will not go so far as to say they did this with other people’s ideas it has become more and more clear that Apple as a company followed the lead of Steve Jobs. Jobs admitted more than once that he used other peoples’ ideas as inspiration and is on video repeating a borrowed quote the past. This quote, interestingly enough, has been attributed to many people including Pablo Picasso, T.S. Eliot, Henry Ford, and more.

In a market full of look-a-like products or flimsy gimmicks it is hard to find a truly interesting device. However, every now and then someone puts something together that is really out of the ordinary. This is what we found when we received a small package from Thermaltake in the mail the other day. Inside the slightly battered box was one of the most interesting gaming peripherals we have ever tested. We are talking about the Level 10 Mouse. This unusual aluminum creation was designed by BMW and using specifications from Thermaltake’s tteSports division. This $90+ dollar mouse comes in a variety of colors and has some impressive features to offer. So let’s see if this unusual design really brings something new to the gaming table or if it is all flash and show.

The designer of the laptop as we know it, Bill Moggridge, passed away this last weekend at the age of 69. Morrgridge was one of the pioneers of industrial design that created the first laptop for Grid Systems, a startup firm. The first model that is also considered the first laptop ever the Grid Compass was his baby. At only 12 pounds weight it was a breakthrough for the current “mobile” solutions that were averaging at 26 pounds. It featured a folding display and it was used by NASA and the military. The price was $8,150, which was quite a lot back in 1982.